May Day is an interesting date in the calendar (besides being a long weekend for us Brits) and according to wiki celebrations hold no bounds, regardless of your creed or homeland –“it has traditionally been an occasion for popular and often raucous celebrations, regardless of the locally prevalent political or religious establishment” translated – an excuse for a piss up.

It is of course also Labour (not Labor) Day too, Loyalty Day not May Day in the US (although you guys are credited with starting it all following the tragic events of the Haymarket Riot, this is also the day the happy union between Scotland and England was signed back in 1707, giving me licence expand the boundaries of this post a little further, so with that in mind thought I’d post something vaguely linked.

Serious stuff first as we are in the throes of an election after all;One for Labour Day Between the Wars (Peel Sessions) – Billy BraggBuy BillyHomepage

BBC St George
It’s St George’s day, nobody get excited, we English are more reserved than our neighbours over the sea in Ireland, no big piss up’s and shenanigans for us, just a quite toast, a nod to past, present and future, you maybe sense some sarcasm? , to clear it up I’m English, if asked I’m English, not British first, but British, not a European first, but a European, you get the picture, not looking for any sympathy (I have my stiff upper lip) but sometimes defining what is is to be “English” is harder than, well……Scottish, or Welsh, or Irish, despite the stereotyping of all of the UK’s regions, or maybe that’s just me. No English passports, no National Anthem, we don’t even have St. George to ourselves, if sharing a dead Roman soldier is possible, he’s patron to much more, wiki

There has being much written on what it is to be English, what defines the country, what defines it’s people, it’s place in world history etc. a couple of books I’d recommend, and a handful of tracks to go……. (to go is that English?)